Nvidia GTX 960 vs AMD R9 280X

JJroks543 · Jan 22, 2015

Basically, NVIDIAs brand spanking new 960 came out not too long ago, but as I was about to buy it I decided to do more research. I discovered that in some people's opinion, the AMD card is better, but I have no clue if this is true or not. Could someone confirm or deny this for me? Thank you

Gam3r01 · Jan 22, 2015

The 280x is ~15% ahead of the 960.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_960_Gaming/29.html

vmem · Jan 22, 2015

do you care about power consumption at all (aka do you live outside of the US?) if not the 280x is faster and you should get that

Winly · Jan 22, 2015

if you care about power consumption then the GTX if not, and if you want the best out of the 2 then the R9 is your best bet.

iamlegend · Jan 22, 2015

Here`s a great comparison from Tom`s.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-5.html

It suggests that R9 280X beats the GTX 960.

JJroks543 · Jan 22, 2015

Gam3r01 :

Sweet, just one more question: do you think it could max out games like Civilization V and Borderlands 2? (1080p)

Gam3r01 · Jan 22, 2015

The 280x will run the newer civ at ~66FPS. It should run Civ V slightly better.
Should run BL2 just fine.

vmem · Jan 22, 2015

shouldn't be a problem for 280x

censure · Jan 25, 2015

The latest CIV and supposedly all future releases are supposed to support Mantle which puts the 280x substantially ahead of the 960. In fact... the 280x probably beats the Geforce 980 (a $550 card) in those games thanks to that API (if not in raw FPS, at least in overall performance).

Gam3r01 · Jan 25, 2015

Mantle wont boost performance nearly enough to beat a 980 with a 770 performance class card.

vmem · Jan 25, 2015

censure :

mantle mainly helps in situations where there is a CPU bottleneck. while Civ games have always been CPU intensive, a modern i5 or i7 from Intel have been shown to be sufficient for the games. Mantle will give AMD cards an edge for sure, but I doubt it will be anything more than 5-10% unless you're using a seriously underperforming CPU (such as i3 or pentium, or fx4000 class or APU)

spladam · Jan 29, 2015

vmem :

Where did you hear that Mantle mainly helps in CPU bottleneck situations?

spladam · Jan 29, 2015

censure :

According to benchmarks so far, the advantages of Mantle are nowhere near that kinda of improvement. The gap between the 280x and the 980 is pretty substantial.

spladam · Jan 29, 2015

I picked up the Sapphire Dual X R9 280, which you can OC the crap out of, for $164 after mail in rebate off of NewEgg. So you can get the R9s for pretty cheap now, and the Dual X cooling is pretty damn good, but like everyone else said, they draw a good bit more power compared to NVIDIA's "sweet spot" GPU. Personally, I keep my power saving features activated with my PC, so I have a little headroom, and I do care about those things, as I see the effects on the power bill. You also get an extra GB of GDDR 5 with the 280x, and the 280, for those high res textures and MSAA, and the normal 280 has about the same performance as the 960.

Check this out:
http://www.reviewstudio.net/1755-sapphire-r9-280-dual-x-review-the-x-makes-the-difference/performance
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/67581-sapphire-radeon-r9-280-dual-x/?page=11

vmem · Jan 29, 2015

spladam :

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-mantle-performance-benchmark,3860.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/793-thief-battlefield-4-mantle-performance/page2.html

there are other reviews as well. Note that gains from using mantle are more substantial when combined with a low-end CPU such as an i3 or an APU. but the gains are less noticable when using high-end FX CPUs or i5/i7s. another interesting thing to note is that gains from Mantle are more obvious in low resolution (read CPU bottle-necked or CPU limited) situations, and less noticeable at higher resolutions. Particularly at resolutions above 1080p, there are hardly any gains at all

Microsoft lover · Mar 22, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDhu5zLVLU0
see this
you will better understand who is the winner

spladam · Jun 5, 2015

vmem :

spladam :

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-mantle-performance-benchmark,3860.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/793-thief-battlefield-4-mantle-performance/page2.html

there are other reviews as well. Note that gains from using mantle are more substantial when combined with a low-end CPU such as an i3 or an APU. but the gains are less noticable when using high-end FX CPUs or i5/i7s. another interesting thing to note is that gains from Mantle are more obvious in low resolution (read CPU bottle-necked or CPU limited) situations, and less noticeable at higher resolutions. Particularly at resolutions above 1080p, there are hardly any gains at all

Yeah, I can back these up with my own test now, my CPU usage on Mantle apps is much better spread out among cores and I have much less bottleneck issues using it. In fact, I run higher CPU temps with Mantle apps then any other.
Good call.

Nvidia GTX 960 vs AMD R9 280X

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